


Fairytales and Dragon Scales

by ClawsxOnxMyxHeartstrings



Series: Time flies when you live with a dragon... I guess [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Elf Jason, Jaytimweek2018: Day 1 Magic, M/M, dragon Tim, half of this I wrote up just now.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 14:49:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16600004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClawsxOnxMyxHeartstrings/pseuds/ClawsxOnxMyxHeartstrings
Summary: In a world with dragons, one can always expect adventure, magic and legends come to life!For Jason, though, his adventure happened to start with a dragon and a spirit being his teachers.The dragon in particular is a huge pain in the neck.





	Fairytales and Dragon Scales

“If you hold that stance for too long, you’ll get a cramp.”

“Screw you, I’ve got this.”

“You said that the last seventeen times you tried this spell,” Tim chuckled in his head, still lying on his stomach as he dozed patiently.

Jason sighed, before trying to summon the small pebble that sat under the water of the small creek in the cave’s systems. His hand throbbed and he shook it violently, hissing at the painful squeeze his muscles gave.

“Ah, that hurts, ooohh it hurts.”

“What did I say?”

“Yeah, yeah, you were right. Aren’t you meant to be helping me?”

“Coming from ‘Mr. I Don’t Need Your Help’, that sounds a little ironic,” the dragon rumbled, barely moving his eyelids as he spoke through his mind. Jason huffed at him, marching to pluck the stone from the creek and drying it off. The magic in his veins hummed indignantly at the stone that wouldn’t budge.

“Did you ask it to help you?” Jason looked up at Tim, the stupid dragon now smiling, smug, down at him, his molten eyes playful.

“Ask the pebble?” Jason lifted a brow at Tim, and shook the pebble in the air. The dragon moved, slow and smooth, his black scales glinting in the sunlight given by the cracks in the roof of the cavern. Tim extended his neck so he could stoop his head low next to him, and Jason felt the breeze of his hot breath.

Tim pressed his snout closer to Jason, and nudged the hand that held the pebble. Jason moved his hand, so the dragon could easily see it.

“Watch me, listen to what I ask, feel the magic I call for.” Jason rolled his eyes in agitation, but agreed anyways.

Tim focussed on the pebble, and made a low trilling sound in his throat, his mouth moved to open slightly, and a low hum came out from it. Jason didn’t notice the pebble had left his hand until Tim looked to him, and the pebble floated in between them, snapping him out of the trance.

“You- what?” Jason stared at the pebble, looking down at his hand. It was the same pebble. 

“All you have to do is ask- you were frustrating her by not talking to her, she wanted to tell you something.”

“What was it?”

“‘You suck at magic’.”

“Fuck you.”

###

Jason sat on top of the small mountain that housed the cavern, tunic loose and feet bare. The Black Kingdom sat coldly on the side of another mountain, so far away, barely in sight. The brand of that very Kingdom was still burned into the skin of his left bosom, over his heart; a solitary skull, engraved in the forehead was one word: Sionis. His dreadful name.

It had been months since he had last step foot in the kingdom, a mindless soldier, a puppet on sharp wires.

It was night, his only lights the shine of the moon and the bright glow of the small bauble Tim had gifted him. It was made of glass, a pattern only comparable to the bumpy bottom of the creek in the cave; probably where he made it, and had been smoothly sealed shut. Inside was a large spark that would never go out, as long as the glass never broke. Some points of the spark would flicker, but the light was constant.

He felt the brushing of the wind as he continued to stare at the castle of the kingdom, and he felt he could only describe what he felt as hatred, but he didn’t feel it as much as he had months before, when he was first freed from the Misted Sight.

“If you stay out there too long, you’ll catch cold,” Tim spoke next to him. He’d shifted into a smaller version of the giant he slept as in the cavern, about the size of a horse. Jason didn’t move his gaze as the dragon sat next to him, a tail coming to circle around him. Tim sat next to him, his presence warm and all encompassing.

“I don’t catch cold.”

“You certainly don’t catch social cues either- I’m saying, it’s getting boring inside without you, I want you to come down and be company,” Tim rumbled, scooting on his scaled hind to be closer to the ex-soldier.

Jason sighed, and let his weight drop to his side, letting it make contact with Tim’s own side. The dragon startled, turning to look down at the human. Jason blinked slowly, and finally felt a sleepiness ebb at his mind.

“For the longest time, I felt like my whole life was meant to be spent by serving Sionis, I felt like, if I ever lost that, I’d die of uselessness.” Tim sat silent as Jason spoke, patient and willing, more than any other Jason had met in his blurry life.

“I didn’t have a family to provide for, a life quest given by the Fates, or even a name to connect to a family. All I had was my shield, some armour, and the role of a right hand man to a wicked king... everything’s so different for me now, I never thought my eyes had been closed this whole time.”

“You should not blame yourself for anything, a good man guided by a pure hand is capable of things legends are made of; be the hand of pure good, or pure evil. You are a good man, Jason, who knows the toll it takes on one’s mind to endure a hand of pure evil. You now have a chance that people kill for- to be your own guide, may you choose good, or evil.”

Jason felt a prick in his eyes, never had he been truly told he was good, just a tool to be used, a valuable tool was the best compliment he’d been given.

“From how you’ve been treating me, it really seems like you want me to follow the hand of pure good.” Jason shifted to look up at Tim, and the dragon huffed. His black scales glinted gold, like his eyes and horns, in the light of the spark lantern, when he moved to lay on his front paws, looking like a moody wolf.

“The only spells I’m willing to share are good spells, so of course I am,” Tim mumbled, but Jason just smiled.

They sat there for a while, until Tim’s form complained about being too small for so long, so they returned to the cavern, Jason rappelling down on the rope he’d attached to a boulder on the small mountain, and Tim simply slipped through the opening of the cavern ceiling and glided down with his wings.

He waited for Jason, back to his larger form, next to the pile of furs Jason had collected on the various hunts he took during his time with Tim.

“You don’t have to wait for me to fall asleep first, you know that, right?” Jason sat down on the furs, warmed by Tim’s external heat.

“I can go months without a single rest, you, are human, human minds go insane when not given a single rest for long periods of time.” Jason hummed at that, laying down on the furs. 

Being warm and surrounded by the overwhelming feeling of safety, Jason fell asleep in a matter of moments.

Tim waited until Jason had fallen into a dream and shifted to his smaller size again. He strode to the other side of the cavern, shifting as he did so. Scales and wings gave way to pale, freckled skin and wide shoulders. Horns melted into dark hair, and metal claws dripped into dull nails. His golden eyes blinked to a speckled brown, and his tail disappeared. As he passed by an assortment of clothing he’d been given by travellers, back near his old nest, he chose a range of articles to wear.

A pale tunic that felt cool on his skin, a pair of animal skin pants and hunting boots, and a sleeved cloak. This hadn’t been the first time he left while Jason had been asleep, it would hopefully be one of the last times he did. He didn’t like leaving Jason, not in the slightest, but he had to make sure that they were safe.

They, being the dragons he knew had made it out of the attack on the Nest. Cassandra, Barbara and Kate were the ones furthest from him, Stephanie, though not a dragon, was searching for them with Harper, an elf, and so far they’d found signs that they were near Kate.

Though it would be easier for him to traverse up the rest of the mountain in the form of his dragon, it was safer this way. Everything had to be about safety, and even though it was easy to fall into that pattern of rules and regulations, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Tim came to the top in minutes, the wind whispering in his ears. He waited for a sign, and he got one.

###

Jason woke up to Tim’s snout mere millimetres from his face. 

“You want to learn more magic, yes?” Tim queried, even though Jason sat up so fast he head butted Tim. The dragon wasn’t fazed.

“Ow, uh, yeah? Yes, but what’s with the wake up call?”

“In order to properly discipline your body to manipulate the energy of magic, you need to set up a routine, and, magic likes to play before people are awake, so you only slept about four hours.”

Jason groaned at that, and laid back down on his bed of hay, cloth and furs. Why did he have to be so insistent on learning magic?

The dragon moved from above him, his neck bending as he searched for something in his glittering hoard. Jason stood and stretched, there was almost no light out, the roosters in the kingdom wouldn’t have crowed yet. He dug around for his boots, which he didn’t remember taking off, and tugged them on, tying the twine around the top of each of them to keep them from slipping.

Tim returned, a fairly sizeable pouch in his teeth. He lowered it to the ground before Jason and sat back. The pouch string unravelled and the cloth fell away to reveal a collection of perfectly smooth and round gemstones. Some were clear, others were coloured and there were a couple that had veins of shiny metal flowing through them. One rolled out from the pile and was stopped by Jason’s boot. It was a translucent red one, with webbed veins of black in it’s centre.

“These are Spirit Stones, they take years to craft and months to make a perfect one- they hold ancient souls that wished to teach others, but their bodies couldn’t allow them life any longer.” Jason nudged the one that hit his boot, and, as if pulled on string, it rolled straight back to the pile of stones.

He looked to Tim, who settled down on his belly. The dragon let out a guttural sound, and seemed to speak a line of words. The Spirit Stones shook and floated up, and proceeded to move into a perfect circle around Jason.

“Some will choose to teach you, others will not, but, in the end, you get to choose who you want to learn from. They will introduce themselves and will take a quick sweep of your mind. If any feel you are not worthy, they will return to the pouch.” Tim settled his head to stay a good few feet away from Jason and the Spirit Stones. There was silence.

“Just say whenever you’re ready.”

“I thought you were going to teach me?”

“I must first see your strengths and weaknesses, what magic can flow through your veins and if I even can teach you at all. Dragon magic is particular, it’s picky and doesn’t like to connect to humans, those who are chosen by dragon magic, have most of the time trained with a Spirit Stone.”

Jason hadn’t thought of that. Tim had given hints that there were different kinds of magic, ones that could spark off each other or work in harmony.

“Okay, I’m good to go.” Almost instantly, the Stones flew around him, making him jump. He heard whispers, either calming or frantic, one shouted, which made him flinch.

“Oh, they do that.” Jason scowled at him.

The Stones froze in place. Four Stones floated back to the pouch, three clear, and one a brilliant green, that left ten more around him.

“Those are the Sylphs, I didn’t think they’d choose you, they prefer to train women. The green one is a Cave Nymph, they don’t like to choose humans.”

“That’s... comforting, I guess.” The Stone before him flew to his face, it was a milky white and green, marble, shaped like a rounded triangle, and Jason’s eyes fluttered at the strange feeling of something in his mind.

“I am Abatha of Esten Wood, I find you worthy,” said a woman’s voice, it was scratchy and almost sarcastic.

The Stone returned to the circle and the Stones moved again, this time, a clear pink gem, shaped like a face. The feeling in his mind was different from Abatha, instead of a tickling sensation, it was as if he was being caressed gently, like a mother would do to a child.

“I am Ruben of Pasnua, I find you worthy,” they said, and Jason couldn’t tell if they were a man or woman, but they spoke softly.

Tim hummed at that.

“Ruben usually sees children worthy, this is a first.”

The process continued for three more Stones, then, when it was time for the sixth Stone, they froze in their sentence.

Just as Hunnik of Raven Creek introduced himself, the constant whispering around Jason stopped. Jason looked to Tim, who met his eyes.

“Look up.” He did.

Above him were the remaining four stones, furiously shaking.

Abatha, Ruben, Hunnik, Peony, Sol and Buet returned to the pouch, quiet and slow.

“This is strange, they seem to be arguing with each other.”

“Is that good or bad?” 

“Just wait, it’s a stand-off, they’re challenging each other to choose you.”

The Stones kept at it for a few minutes, and one finally relented, it was the red and black one that had rolled out and tapped his boot. It settled into the small pile of Stones.

The remaining Stones were perfectly spherical, one white marble with veins of gold, one black marble with veins of silver, and the third was a shining opal. They whispered furiously, but the opal made a deep humming sound. The sound startled the other Stones, and they floated down to the rest of the Spirit Stones.

“Hello, Jason, I am Aristo of the Elves, I find you worthy to learn. Hold my Stone in your hands, if you choose me as your teacher, and I will see if I can teach you.” Jason looked to Tim, who didn’t seem surprised that Aristo chose him, like he almost expected it.

He held out his hands and Aristo dropped into them, she shifted.

Aristo melted as soon as she touched his skin, and became a pool of white water in his palms. She tossed and turned, like vicious waves struck within her. She chanted a hymn of sorts, and Jason found himself humming along to it.

Tim rose from his seat, and craned his neck to hover over Aristo’s form.

“Now, to see if I’ll be able to teach you my magic.” He opened his great mouth and revealed his large teeth. Two fangs the length of Jason’s hand unsheathed from the front of his top jaw, like a snake’s fangs, and a single drop of molten gold seeped from one fang, running down to the tip. It dropped directly into Aristo’s liquid form.

As soon as the droplet made contact, she changed into so many different forms, Jason’s eyes couldn’t keep up. In the end, she went back to being spherical, but she was smaller. And she was a different colour.

“Hm, Dragon’s Breath,” Tim huffed, and settled back down to be at eye height with Jason. Jason stared at Aristo and ran his fingertips over her Stone. She hummed with certainty.

“Jason, I am now your Spirit Stone, I will strive to teach you all you need and want to know, to protect you and ready you for the ways of draconian magic. The process will be long, the lessons will be tiring, but in turn, you will become a warrior of both Elven and Draconian magic.” She shone brightly in his hands, and hummed again. Two wires sprouted from her Stone and twisted together in a hook.

She turned into an earring. Jason grimaced.

“Could we not do any piercings?”

“Of course, there are other ways for me to be close to you and give advice.” She shone again and the wires disappeared, instead, she formed a thick fabric on either side of her Stone.

A necklace.

“Will this suffice?”

“It’s-“ the thought of the ribbon necklace around his neck made Jason feel a little embarrassed “it’s fine.”

Aristo floated up to his neck and seamlessly bonded around his neck, he felt with his fingertips for any feeling of stitching or a knot. There was none.

“There, now you have a Spirit Stone teacher, an Elven one, no less. She looks good on you.”

###

Aristo was a stern teacher, but she was patient with him.

Jason found himself, more often than not, fiddling with Aristo’s Stone, which rested snug against the ridge of his throat. Tim had called the colour she changed to ‘dragon’s breath’, she was a brilliant dark red around the edges of her Stone, with swirls of bright orange and white, almost exact to the fire Tim could expel from his throat. 

Aristo would talk to him, and she would talk to Tim as well, she acted quite young and joyous when she wasn’t teaching magic, but she liked to stay quiet for the most part.

“I think I know what’s going on between you and Timothy, Jason,” she said to him one night. He was sitting atop the cavern again, and Tim was sleeping after they ate, Aristo humming peacefully at his throat as they watched the stars wink at them from the black velvet of the sky. Jason looked away from the sky to look ahead at the mountain that held the Black Kingdom, wondering what she meant.

“What do you mean?”

“I see the way he looks at you, Jason, his heart melts at the sight of you- which is a bit of an oxymoron, because it takes Eternal Flame to even have the hopes of melting an actual dragon’s heart- and it’s so sweet, if I still had teeth, all of them would have cavities, I mean seriously, his soul sings to you, you just can’t hear it yet.” 

Jason looked away from the castle and to his hands, curled in his lap. He thought of Tim when they first met, Jason had, literally, fallen into his sight and Tim had nursed him back to health from breaking the curse cast upon him. Tim had looked after him and trusted him, even when the dragon had been mourning over the loss of the Nest and a large portion of his hoard.

“If he ever wants to tell me, he will, Tim can keep secrets, but not forever,” Jason said with certainty. Aristo huffed, mourning her loss of some drama. But the feeling of her Stone grew serious.

“Jason, I must tell you this, I feel like Timothy is hiding something from you- you told me you were asking him to teach you magic for weeks now, and instead of teaching you himself, he enlisted the help of us Stones- I feel like he is testing something, I mean, who wouldn’t, considering the perplexing magic in your veins.” Jason blinked at the mention of ‘perplexing magic’.

“What do you mean, ‘perplexing’?”

“It means confusing.”

“I know what it means, but why is my magic perplexing?”

“Even nowadays, it’s hard to find Halflings with magic as strong as yours, though, it’s even more confusing as to how a half Elf can learn Draconian magic.”

Jason lost all function in his brain for a solid seven seconds. Aristo started to ask if he was okay when he revealed he was very much not okay.

“I’m half Elf!? Why did no one tell me!?”

If Aristo had a corporeal body, he felt she would have given him a shocked stare.

“You mean... you didn’t know?”

“If I did know, I’m pretty sure I would’ve asked about it before this conversation, Aristo, I’m pretty sure.” Jason stood from his sitting on the rocks, and started to pace, his mind racing faster than ever before. He paced past the crevice that led down to where Tim was sleeping.

Tim.

“Did he know this whole time?”

“That’s what I was trying to figure out, dragons are a wee bit complicated and hard to understand, even for Elven like myself, I feel like he’s been testing to see how powerful you really are. Oh, and sorry, I genuinely thought you knew you were half Elf. That’s why I didn’t mention it to you.” Jason paused in his pacing.

“Do you think he was just testing to see if I was part... Elf?”

“No, dragons are very intelligent creatures, and often find loopholes and can charm many with a glance. I’m not saying he’s done any of those on you, just that his behaviour is strange. He feels lost in a world that stole his home from him. He might see you as a tether of sorts.”

Jason stared out to the mountains, to the castle he served in, unwillingly and under the Misted Mind, a mind control spell placed on all citizens of the Black Kingdom, which forced innocent people to fight for the king, the king he served for three years before his near death broke the curse.

“Why would he see me as a tether?”

“Elves and Dragons have a long history, Jason, Dragons were the ones who taught Elves magic, and in payment, Elves would often become part of a Hoard- because dragons can often become very lonely, we decided the best payment was to give them company.”

Jason thought hard. Tim had basically saved his life, and asked nothing in return, but Jason had felt like he owed the dragon, owed him his life, and now that he thought about it, Tim had become progressively more responsive to him since their first meeting. Maybe his want to be around Tim was in his blood? Okay, that just sounded weird.

“Back in the older days, it was extremely common to see an elf and know that a dragon was close by. In fact, that also became a large reason as to why both of our species have gone into hiding, because Elves became a sign of dragons, we could no longer enter human villages in peace, we’d be taken as a hostage or murdered as punishment for our friend.”

“You speak like you were part of a Hoard, too.”

“I was, once, to a grand dragon queen, Hippolyta. She and I died together in battle, and she had used the last of her magic to seal me in one of her most precious stones, telling me to pass on the knowledge that had been blessed upon me. And now, here I am, a pretty necklace on a half Elf’s neck.” Jason sighed, and stopped thinking so much about it.

“If he has a reason for suddenly wanting to teach me, I’m sure that he’ll tell me, in his own time.” 

###

The next morning, Tim woke up before Jason, and perched above him, breathing out of his nostrils.

It took Jason a few moments to register the sensation in his sleep, but he woke with a fright, once again.

“Fuck! Stop doing that!”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Could you two stop bickering? Some spirits need their beauty sleep,” Aristo yawned, her voice clear in the air. Jason muttered a sorry to her, while Tim just snorted. The dragon turned away, starting to nose around his things. He mumbled as he went;

“Damned spirits, always got to ruin someone’s fun.”

“I heard that,” Aristo rebutted. Jason sat up as Tim leered close again.

He wasn’t prepared for Tim to move his head behind his back and nudge his back. Jason protested as they went, and Tim moved fast enough one time that he lifted Jason off the ground with his muzzle, lifting the Elf to the creek in the cavern.

“Bombs away.” And Tim dropped him into the deeper end, away from any rocks that would kill him.

Jason fell in with a yelp, and surfaced with a vile curse.

“What the hell!? You fucking don’t know when to quit it, don’t you?!” Tim looked down at him, smug. 

“You’re starting to stink, Jason, you need a bath.”

Jason glared, and started to shiver. It was nearing winter, so the pervious night had made the creek lower to near freezing temperatures.

“Kinda hard if my fingers freeze off, huh?” Jason watched as Tim levelled a glare at him, grinning through the shivers. Tim leaned down to the water, and something under a few of his scales on his jaw glowed a pale blue, Tim blew a pale blue mist upon the creek and something happened. The water around Jason became still, as if he was sitting in a tub, while the rest of the water remained flowing.

It suddenly wasn’t so freezing.

“‘Scuze me for a second.” Tim bent down really close to Jason and just, dunked his head into the creek water. Jason moved away from the dragon’s head, suspicious of what he was doing.

And it clicked when it quickly grew to be very warm in the creek. 

Tim lifted his head from the creek and smirked at Jason.

“When it starts getting cold, heat it up yourself.”


End file.
